Uganda’s ministry of health on Monday committed itself to offering free antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to HIV/AIDS sufferers who urgently need it but cannot afford it, starting January 2004. The announcement was made at the World AIDS Day commemoration in Kampala, attended by President Yoweri Museveni and Health Minister Jim Muhwezi.

Army representative in Parliament Lt. Gen Salim Saleh has resigned over allegations of corruption and abuse of office. In a letter, Saleh listed three reasons for quitting. "My first reason is the unending allegations of corruption and abuse of office, which have ranged from the bungled helicopter purchase, my role in the privatisation of former Uganda Commercial Bank to last year's allegations of plundering Congo's natural resources. All these allegations have come and passed but have left me very perturbed."

Records on wealth declaration should be made accessible to the media and the public if they were to help in the fight against corruption, a Uganda government official says. Mr Jotham Tumwesigye, Uganda's Inspector-General of Government, said both the media and the public were the government's partners in the fight against graft. He was addressing a workshop organised by Transparency International Kenya Nairobi.

The practice of abducting children for exploitation as child soldiers or sexual slaves continues unabated in Northern Uganda’s three districts of Kitgum, Gulu and Pader. Despite tragic losses and cruel compromises of human rights of the kidnapped children, the government forces insist that they will not lay down their guns until they have disarmed and paralysed the rebel forces, while civil society, local communities, and religious actors are together crying for peace. This article in the Peace and Conflict Monitor assesses the chances for non-violent change in Northern Uganda.

The Anglican Church of Uganda said Saturday that it has severed ties with the Episcopal Church of the United States for elevating an openly gay man to the rank of bishop.

Fear of abduction is leading anywhere from 12-15,000 children in Northern Uganda to migrate to locked shelters every night. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is the reason these children walk up to two hours every night in order to sleep. The LRA has a long history of abducting children and looting personal property. Parents send their children into town for their own security while they stay at home to protect their property.

The United Nation’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland declared that the United Nations, donors and the Ugandan government have “done too little” to address the humanitarian situation in northern Uganda. Following a two day visit to northern Uganda where he visited Kitgum and Gulu districts as well as IDP camps, Egeland told the press that he was “shocked” by what he saw and that he did not know of another “place in the world where such a bad situation has so little international presence and so little international relief.”

The battered survivors of Uganda's latest bloodletting lay moaning or unconscious in a hospital overflowing with wounded on Wednesday. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) killed 17 people in the attack by bludgeoning their heads with wooden sticks, government officials said. But witnesses said up to 53 villagers had been killed in the raid on several villages.
Related Link:
MP's quit house in protest at war
http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news1.php

Officers from a leading legal support network for women in Uganda have commended the government's recent approval of the controversial Domestic Relations Bill. Annette Tendo, advocacy officer for FIDA-Uganda, said the bill "addresses a range of issues we have been concerned about for a number of years".

Uganda is not actively recruiting child soldiers into the army, but neither is it trying hard enough to stop them being recruited, a senior officer with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will neither authorise joint patrols with nor grant a military corridor to the Ugandan army for pursuit of Ugandan rebels based in northeastern Congo, Mulegwa Zihindula, spokesman of DRC President Joseph Kabila, said on Thursday. "If the Ugandan army returns to our territory, we will consider this an act of aggression and will take the necessary action," Mulegwa said at a news conference in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.

Ugandan environmental and rural development organisations are asking for international support in their efforts to stop the construction of the Bujagali dam and redirect the Bank's attention toward developing renewable energy options that would make electricity more affordable and accessible to the majority of Uganda's citizens. You can support this cause by sending a letter to the president of the World Bank.

The cabinet in Uganda has paved the way for senior figures including the president's brother to be tried for corruption and wasting state resources. The officials are accused of wasting millions of dollars buying two unusable second-hand helicopters from Belarus.

African human rights NGOs and their international counterparts should strengthen their relations based on the principles of: Cooperation in the exchange of information and expertise; Joint ownership of projects and recognition of the same; Avoidance of duplication, including substitution of local capacity, in projects of local NGOs by International NGOs. This is according to the declaration of an Africa Human Rights NGO Summit held in September.

Thousands of terrified civilians were fleeing a number of villages in Lira district and seeking shelter in and around Lira town, following incursions by the Lord's Resistance Army. "They are cutting off people's heads. Every time we hear of an incident, it's a new level of brutality," said Father John Fraser, who helps run the Catholic Church-owned radio station in Lira, a town of about 100,000 inhabitants.

More than 60 people were killed in the north last week by suspected rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army, religious officials said at the weekend. "Thirty people were killed in the villages of Awayapiny and Alanyi, 20 in Omarari and nine more at Omoro North Primary School - all in Lira district on Thursday night," Fr. Sabbat Ayele, a Catholic missionary, told AFP.

To date, public awareness of the role of the WTO has largely focussed on the protests surrounding its biannual ministerial meetings, most notably in Seattle in November 1999. However both in Seattle, and subsequently, a less visible process of dialogue between civil society and trade policy makers has been developing at national level. These stakeholders include non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working with poor and marginalised communities. A number of governments from both developing and developed countries included NGO representatives on their official delegations to the Seattle and Doha (2001) Ministerials. The aim of the exercise is twofold: involving a wide group of stakeholders in policy design should lead to trade policies that better reflect the needs and interests of the public, and should also encourage more widespread ‘ownership’ of national trade policies, helping to avoid damaging splits between governments and the organisations of the poor. This paper looks at two examples of stakeholder involvement from East Africa - Uganda and Kenya.

Members of Parliament have demanded an investigation into the alleged bribe scandal regarding the proposed Bujagali hydropower project in Jinja, east of Kampala. The legislators demanded to know the MPs who received bribes, saying these were serious allegations that were tarnishing the image of parliament.

Uganda’s estimated 100,000 people living with AIDS, who are in urgent need of anti-retrovirals (ARVs) but cannot afford them could soon have access to locally produced ARVs at a cost of less than 50 US cents per day, according to a Ugandan company planning to produce the drugs.

What are the links between war and ideas of masculinity? Do the way men think about their gender offer incentives to armed forces to use violence? How are non-combatant males caught up in violence? What role does the state play in the promotion or collapse of alternative masculinities? This paper analyses the role of masculinity in provoking or perpetuating violence and conflict in war-torn northern Uganda.